


Walking Nights

by galaxysoup



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-01
Updated: 2003-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22528753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysoup/pseuds/galaxysoup
Summary: Nighttime introspection – what Daniel might feel about Sam/Jack. Companion piece to Happily Ever After.





	Walking Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [The Comfort Zone](http://www.sg1hc.com/main.shtml) fanfic archive.
> 
> Present!Galaxysoup author note: Look. This is, technically, a Jack/Sam story. I didn't tag it as that because it is also, subtly, a Jack/Sam _bashing_ story. This was a different time and I was a less evolved author and fandom participant; at that time, in my experience, you were either Team Jack/Daniel or Team Jack/Sam and never the twain should meet. In fact, if you were Team Jack/Daniel you were contractually obligated to hate Sam, and vice versa. I did, fortunately, mostly manage to avoid that particular trap, but a _lot_ of people I interacted with then did not. I include this note as an explanation for the tagging choices I made and, to an extent, the tone of the story itself; as a bit of fandom history; and as a more specific warning to any SG1 fandom veterans I'm about to dropkick straight into a fandom dynamics flashback.

## Walking Nights

Some nights are good. Those are the nights when he can sit in his living room and read. For pleasure, although Jack would probably argue that reading an archaeological journal can't possibly be pleasurable for anyone. Some nights he watches television. He always finds television fascinating. He has never been the type of person to keep in touch with pop culture, and watches television like other people might watch an ancient Egyptian funeral; from the outside, looking in. On those nights, the nights devoted to indulging his curiosity, he goes to bed early. He sleeps on the couch most of the time, when he isn't injured, which Sam says is strange and vaguely disturbing. He finds waking up in bed alone depressing. Not, of course, that he would ever admit to it. 

And then there are the bad nights. Those are the nights when the loneliness rises in him like a tide, steady, inevitable, irresistable. It comes from below his lungs, above his stomach where the two halves of his ribcage meet, and spreads its tentacles through his chest until he can't breathe, can't speak. Those are the nights when he works at the mountain, sustained by pot after pot of insanely strong coffee, which makes Jack and especially Janet crazy. 

Sometimes when the loneliness comes he's already in his apartment. It still catches him by surprise sometimes; he'll be sitting on his couch, or curled up ready to sleep, and the loneliness will surge forward in a steady black wave and he has to get up and move or he'll lose himself. Those are the nights when he walks. 

He loves to walk. There is something that appeals to him about walking alone through the city at night with only the sound of his own footsteps for company. He loves to walk until Daniel Jackson has faded away and he is nothing more than an empty vessel wandering aimlessly through the dark streets. He never plans on a destination. Sometimes he'll find himself at Sam's house, or, more often, at Jack's. Once he even found himself on Janet's street, but he didn't stop. Her house was dark and he knew Cassie had school the next day, so he stood on the sidewalk by the kitchen window for a few moments, returning to himself long enough to smile at his memories of Janet and her adopted daughter, and then moved on. 

Jack had been incredulous to the point of speechlessness the first time he realized that Daniel had walked all the way from his apartment to Jack's house in the dead of night. He had sputtered incoherently about dangerous criminals and flaky archaeologists and then his face had softened a little and he had brought Daniel up to his observation platform, casually mentioning as they solemnly regarded the sky that his bedroom was on the other side of the house and he probably wouldn't hear it if anyone climbed up to watch the stars. If, of course, anyone ever happened to do so in the middle of the night. Hypothetically. 

Jack is a good friend. 

Tonight is one of the bad nights. He is out and on the street almost before he's registered the coming of the loneliness. It's a good night for walking; cool, with just enough light drizzle in the air to turn the streetlights into fuzzy yellow cones. The deserted street glistens and he paces carefully down the yellow line in the middle, confident that he'll see the headlights of any approaching cars long before they've become dangerous. Every now and then he sees someone else, a dark shape in the mist, gone almost before they've come. From time to time there is a burst of sound from a party or a bar, but for the most part the night is muffled by the crystalline drops now clinging to his hair and glasses. 

Yes, it's a good night for walking. 

He can feel himself slipping away and he welcomes the emptiness. He becomes Void. He is just a space waiting to be filled with whatever he wishes. The memory of a birthday spent by the pyramids? A night with Sha're in his arms. A picnic with Jack, Sam, Teal'c, Janet and Cassie. A dead language or two. Maybe a poem. Nothing else exists. The world is his to be made. He is invisible. The night steals his identity. He is on Jack's street. 

He can see Jack's house ahead. The lights are out, but, as Jack had pointed out oh-so-subtly oh-so-long-ago, the observation platform is distant from the bedroom. Daniel doesn't mind that the night sky is obscured by rain; he can reconstruct any constellations he wants in the darkness. Egypt in the summer. Abydos maybe. Nem's world with planets hanging visibly on the horizon. 

He rounds the corner and starts into Jack's driveway, stepping silently around the bumper of Sam's car as he heads for the 

Wait. 

Sam's car? 

In Jack's driveway? 

At night? 

It takes him a few moments of standing still to gather his thoughts. He checks the house again. All the lights are still off. He runs through the event of the day, but finds no mention of any team event at Jack's house he might have forgotten. No, Jack definitely said he wanted to catch a game, and Sam definitely said she was going to turn in early and catch up on some sleep. He reaches out and touches the car carefully, like he might touch an artifact. It's real. 

He stands there for a long time. A few minutes. Maybe half an hour. A long time. His brain is trying to wrap itself around this latest development. 

Sam's car. 

In Jack's driveway. 

At night. 

The loneliness rises in him again, robbing him of breath. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, and decides dimly that that's probably a good thing because at least now he knows it's still there. Odd that it's still there, actually, with his chest so empty. He finds himself thinking, incongruously enough, of his couch, and the silent television and the bed he doesn't use because it's too depressing. He thinks of the archaeological journals stacked neatly under the coffee table, and the coffee pot in the kitchen. He thinks of his office at the mountain, packed to overflowing with books and translations and interesting artifacts. He thinks of himself, standing alone in Jack's driveway next to Sam's car at three in the morning on a drizzly Colorado night. 

And then he turns and keeps walking. 

On bad nights, it's the only thing to do. 

**FINIS**


End file.
